"HERE HIM"

Ro's contribution:     "HERE HIM"      lower right hand corner

On Easter Sunday my daughter Brittany and her family who live in Portland decided to write inspirational messages on their neighborhood walkway with colored chalk.  My grand boy Ro, who will be seven in August, decided to write only two words:  "Here Him".  

When Pa Lou found out about what Ro had chosen to write, Pa Lou told Ro he was very impressed and asked him why he chose that particular message.  Ro told Pa Lou, "You don't have to wear a coat and a tie to be a missionary.  Heavenly Father told us about His plan of happiness before we came to earth, and He asked us to tell other people about it when we got here.  We lived in heaven before we were born.  Then we were born here to choose the right, then we die so we can live with Heavenly Father again. You just have to say something.  You can also serve other people like Jesus did by doing good things for them."  

Wow!  Out of the mouth of babes....

President Russell M. Nelson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has spent most of his two plus years as Prophet of the Church teaching about receiving personal inspiration to guide our lives and pleading with us to do everything we can to implement this important principle into our lives.

One of those ways is to identify the ways we "hear" the Lord as his spirit teaches, instructs, guides, counsels, warns, and leads us. 

President Nelson said it is important that we "hear" with our hearts as we study the scriptures and listen to our leaders.  We need to "unplug" and slow down so we can discern that still, small voice.  And, we need to remember the Lord works in those small and simple circumstances that are always an undercurrent in our lives.

In the days leading up to Easter, including during our recent April General Conference, President Nelson extended many invitations for all of us to Hear Him.   

Ro may have misspelled a word, but he nailed President Nelson's message.

"HEAR HIM"

SPRINGTIME IN THE ROCKIES

A couple of weeks ago when the temperatures began to get warmer on a daily basis, and I could see buds on the trees and a tease of green out in the fields, I decided to buy a bowl of "sunshine" to put on the front porch.  In spite of COVID-19, WalMart has had an abundance of new bedding plants for spring planting and other decorative flowers for Easter.  It was all a very welcome sight.  

I'm not too keen on lilies or hyacinth or some of the other bulb varieties. So, I succumbed to a  pot of bright yellow begonias, not too big and not too expensive--$5.00.  I was happy.  They made the drab front porch look like a spot of "cheerful ".  Every time I backed out of the driveway, I backed up just a little bit farther on the street so I could take in the curbside view.  What a difference those little blossoms made!

Sometimes when the forecast calls for a certain kind of weather here, it never materializes.  After all, we are in the Rocky Mountain West in the Northern Hemisphere.  I once read where this is the most difficult place in all the earth to predict weather because of the upslopes and downslopes from the mountains causing unsettled air. 

However, this last week the weather forecasters have gone out of their way to warn of, not one weather system, but two weather systems that were coming our way.  One headed down from Canada and the other from the southern West Coast.  Colliding for Easter weekend, no less.  Actually, we had a great day on Saturday with bright sun and a high of nearly 80 degrees.  Then after dark, the wind began to howl.  The snow had already covered the fence when I got up to look out about 1 a.m.

When I first read/heard about a massive weather system signalling another freaky storm, I told myself to be sure and bring in my bright little flowers as they would never survive lows in the teens.  And, I forgot.  Wah! Wah!

When I opened the front door on Easter morning, that pot of yellow begonias looked like they were wax.  Standing at perfect attention, they were straight and tall.  Exquisite, even.  But when I touched the petals, the plant was frozen solid!  I should have taken a picture then as I was bringing them into the house.  Because an hour later the blossoms were completely collapsed and hanging over the edge of the pot.  Today they look like this.  But I don't think they are going to recover, as the stems are transparent and mushy.

  

I could just kick myself!  How could I have forgotten that one small act of opening the front door to bring them in for safe-keeping.  Not a very good steward, I.

This picture is our backyard about 11 a.m. this morning.  Day two.  Early morning yesterday and today both, the sidewalks and streets were covered in snow, too.  But, after all it IS April, and the ground underneath isn't frozen, so the snow has melted off the concrete and asphalt.  Yet the snow flurries continue.  Supposedly, for another couple of days.  Yikes!  (Another trip to DIA in sub-freezing temperatures and slick roads again early tomorrow morning.)

So it is when people who are new to the area or here visiting and can't wrap their head around snow in April, we "natives" merely shrug and say...

"It's just Springtime in the Rockies!"

GOOD FRIDAY!

When I was younger, I couldn't understand why the very worst day for Jesus Christ during Easter Week was called GOOD FRIDAY.  It didn't seem to me that there was anything good about it at all.  He suffered the beginning agony of the Atonement in the Garden of Gethsemane.  He was betrayed by a friend, insulted in a mock trial, sentenced to death by crucifixion, and forced to carry his own cross to the place of execution.  He hung from this cross in unbearable pain until He himself yielded his life when his work here on earth was finished.  

However, I have come to learn, and know for myself, that Christ's atonement which began on that day was very good indeed.  A divine gift freely given to all of God's children who would embrace it and use this perfect sacrificial love to not only be forgiven of our sins and transgressions, but also to find comfort through a power which can make our grief and tribulations bearable.

Now for Good Friday, April 10, 2020, our Prophet Russel M. Nelson has invited the whole world  to join a second time together in fasting, no matter what religious denomination or faith.   “...during times of deep distress, as when illness reaches pandemic proportions, the most natural thing for us to do is to call upon our Heavenly Father and His Son—the Master Healer—to show forth Their marvelous power to bless the people of the earth.”

And he said the following last Saturday in the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

“Let us prayerfully plead for relief from this global pandemic.

I invite all, including those not of our faith, to fast and pray on Good Friday, April 10, that the present pandemic may be controlled, caregivers protected, the economy strengthened, and life normalized.”

I, with so many others, know that the Lord will answer our prayers.  We will see miracles!

Yes!  GOOD FRIDAY indeed!

TIME ON MY HANDS....

     

                                     

TIME ON MY HANDS....  

One would think I would be quick to put that time to good use.  Oh, I've had "good intentions"  of doing so.  But to actually say I have is an over-statement.   For all the years I said if I just had some time I could get so much done, it just hasn't happened.  Time has been spread out before me like a banquet, and I haven't even bothered to do more than nibble.

At first it was just nice knowing I had only one easy trip each week for the month of April.  I truly was surprised I was even awarded a regular schedule.  In fact I got my second choice.  The way things were being presented at United, I thought for sure that I probably would get a regular schedule, but one not of my choosing.  Wrong.  And I was really amazed and happy.

My initial trip was the very first day of April's work month.  March 31st.  After that trip the schedule called for multiple days home before the next 2-day assignment.  Wow!  I haven't had a chance to  be home that much since I had cataract surgery--and then it wasn't all that great because I had limitations.  So, the first few days I just basked in doing what I wanted when I wanted--or NOT doing anything at all.  Then that got old.

I began to think I had better start some serious effort to take care of the housekeeping details that are easily overlooked, just so there is enough time that the basic minimum is taken care of.  We are talking here of cleaning cupboards and drawers, washing all the artificial plants in the house--and there are A LOT of them, laundering the bedding, vacuuming the furniture, scrubbing the tile, dusting the baseboards.  You get the picture.

And in addition to that, how about finding repair people for the caulking in the shower since that is beyond the job description of other people in the same house, an electrician to replace some blown fuses which got that way when the hand mixer started smoking before Christmas and rendered the plug on the kitchen island and all plugs on the south side of the kitchen inoperable, and an arborist to do some serious trimming and repair on the remaining trees in the backyard.

Then there is a third level of jobs that need to be addressed.  Those pertaining to organizing the pertinent information of my personal financial and online life and put them together in one place in case anyone might need to go looking for a bank account number, a life insurance policy, or the like.  Or what about the stuff I always say I would work on IF I had the time (I'm thinking all the times I said I do have things to do AFTER I retire).  That would include tossing 95% of the recipes I have collected over the years--I mean REALLY getting tough and not thinking that "Hey, this might be a good and easy dish to make."  It ain't a gonna happen.  I know that, so I need to get tough and get rid of those recipes.  Compile the rest into a doable pile from which to make a final  NICHOLS FAMILY EATS cookbook.  And then again there is always the picture box if I run out of stuff to do.  Maybe edit and self-publish a second volume of V.T. letters with LULU.  And the never-ending specter of Family History which always looms over my head. 

Okay, I knew what I had to do.  Make a "To Do List" and start knocking off those jobs one by one. ( Oh, I do love to check off items on a list!)  Or at least make a start on SOMETHING!  Only, tackling that list was harder to take care of than I thought.  Some days I  have taken a look at that elephant and said--"not today".  I have to be in the mood for some of that stuff.  Like I already know the housekeeping details that are involved with many of these jobs, and sometimes getting a singular task done is downright hard work. 

I even tried the "Faye Nix" way.  Nixes were a family we knew in the ward when we lived in Berlin.  They had five or six kids, too, but Faye said she didn't stress over housework like I did.  She put three things on her to-do list every day.  If she got them done, fine.  If not, whatever was left went to the top of the list for the next day.  I used to think it was best to get the basics done every day before stuff piled up until the whole job of housecleaning was too overwhelming.  Now here I am emulating Faye Nix.  Unsuccessfully, I might add.

What has the outcome been...?  Not very much accomplished, I'm sorry to admit.  A drawer.  Three or four singular shelves.  Wiping down the kitchen counters.  A thorough cleaning of the laundry room, including pulling out the washer and dryer and scrubbing the grungy floor underneath them.  Washing the artificial plants in three small areas.  Tackling the under-sink cupboard in my bathroom just one little bit at the time as I have literally thrown stuff under there for lack of a more dignified storage for bars of soap, make-up mistakes, and the like.  And that's about it.  Pathetic, isn't it!

Not making any promises, though, to myself or anyone else. It will all probably still be here at my life's end for my children to spend countless hours sorting through while they grit their teeth and snarl, "Why? Why? Why?" over and over. 

...QUE SERA, SERA